1

Jacques Philippe – The Spiritual Paternity of the Priest

FATHERHOOD, LIKE ALL profound realities of human life and spiritual life, is not
evidently something that can be enclosed in words or definitions. Even more so if 'every paternity in
the sky and on earth receives its name from God," as Saint Paul has just told us. However, without
To claim to exhaust the mystery, there are some statements we can make. It seems to me that
they can recognize in parenthood two essential elements that cannot be dissociated from one another:
the unconditionality of a love and the authority of a word.

UNCONDITIONAL LOVE Being a father means being a witness to God's absolute and unconditional love for
every person. This love, which Saint Paul speaks of in the first Letter to the Corinthians, that 'everything
endures, believes all, hopes all, bears all". Every man, regardless of his mistakes and
wounds, he should feel welcomed and loved just as he is. The father must never have an attitude of rejection,
contempt, hardness, judgment towards whatever it may be. He even has a special affection for the smallest ones,
the poorest, the most wounded. An endless patience, based on hope. Believe in the other,
even when he no longer believes in himself. I would dare to say, relying on the quoted passage from
Saint Paul, that one of the aspects of this unconditional love is a form of 'hope'.
unconditional." I have heard of a man who gave the following testimony. Raised in a family
Cristana had rejected everything in adulthood, and never set foot in the church again. Many
Years later, he ended up returning to faith and religious practice. He said this: I am convinced that if I have
having been able to return to the Lord is because my father has never doubted me. He always believed that one day I
I would return to God.

It seems to me that a beautiful and deep dimension of fatherhood is shown here: never despair.
of whom God has entrusted me as a son, whatever their ways may be. I believe a lot in the strength of
hope. "One receives from God as much as one expects," says Saint John of the Cross. And the Sacred Scripture
It also tells us: 'He who hopes in God will not be confounded' and 'hope does not disappoint.'
Maintaining a gaze of hope upon the other is not always easy, evidently. But this gaze
Hope is a source of life for him.

The father, by his attitude, words, and gaze, must never discourage the other, but always...
encourage him, help him to believe in himself and in his possibilities, despite the weaknesses he has or the
errors that may have been made. One should never transmit a negative image of oneself to the other,
Without expressing a deep trust in the other. This does not mean that one is exempt from helping them.
to perceive what is negative in him, his part of sin. Sometimes he must be reprimanded, punished. Only the
truth sets us free. But always, in the trust in God's mercy, greater than any
bad, and in the hope that good can result from everything. Being a parent sometimes requires knowing how to 'wait'
against all hope," as St. Paul says when he mentions Abraham's fatherhood.
It means: I have a thousand reasons to despair for my son, but I hope. Paternal love can
expressing oneself in many ways: gestures, words, attitudes, but especially through the gaze. The
Gospels show us the importance of Jesus' gaze: 'He looked at him and loved him.'

This gaze of God upon us is so beneficial that it frees us from the gaze of others, and
also from the gaze with which we look at ourselves, often very disdainful. I think that the
 2

The gaze of a father has a particular strength, a certain authority to give the child confidence in themselves.
same[7].

A WORD OF AUTHORITY The other essential dimension of fatherhood, inseparable from the first, is
the ability to transmit a truth, to be a bearer of a word of authority, to be a witness of a
demand, which is not there to impose on the other, dominate or control them, but to help them grow, to
to become free and adult. By his function, the father is endowed with a certain grace of authority, not in
the sense of domination, but in the sense of serving to help the other grow. This topic is sensitive
mention it because of all the abuses of authority that we are aware of. It is clear that it cannot be
to sacralize the father or the priest, as has sometimes been done, which can feed those abuses.
But it cannot be denied either that a certain grace rests upon parenthood, a certain
participation in the power of the divine word. It encompasses the entire field of education, in which it is about
help the other to get out of their selfish and sterile attitudes, of their infantilism, of their limitations in the
perception of reality, of the fears in which one can become trapped, of the lack of trust and
courage to take the plunge in life and take on your responsibilities...

Encourage the other to perceive God's call on their life and to respond to this call with trust and
audacity, to be fully himself, to unleash the best that is in him. To communicate a word whose
truth and strength free you from what could prevent you from living fully. It is known that, within the framework of the
family relationships, the presence of the father helps the child to avoid the risk of a relationship that is too
clinging to the mother, in order to become independent and launch into life, preparing to leave the house.
disappearance of the role of the father, and I would also say of masculine virtues (courage, combativeness,
The firmness of mind, rectitude...) that we witness today in our society is not something healthy. I am not saying that the
Women should not be combative and brave; they sometimes are more than men.

One can never admire too much the courage of some mothers who raise their children alone. But with
everything, I think that a certain weakening of the place of man and of masculine virtues in our
world in favor of more feminine values (of protection, of tenderness, of compassion...) continues to induce
the risk of a very 'maternal' education, where there is too much focus on avoiding all pain, all
suffering, every struggle, where there is a tendency to incubate and overprotect the children. This ultimately ends up turning them into

fragile and insecure, unable to accept suffering and frustration, which is nevertheless indispensable
to become adults. Not to mention the fact that the disappearance of the father weakens the role of the woman.
Our God is a God of mercy and tenderness, His heart is more loving than that of a mother.
of mothers, but we all experience that this mercy does not consist of providing us with a
comfortable and easy existence, but in making us adults, capable of taking on the struggles and trials of the
life.

THE FATHER'S BLESSING I WOULD LIKE TO SAY THESE THINGS AGAIN IN A SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT WAY,
talking about a beautiful reality, present in Scripture and in human existence, which is the
father's blessing. I frequently travel to Latin America. In many of these countries, when the
People find out that you are a priest, they come up to you to ask for a blessing: 'Father, the blessing!'
Sometimes there can be a long line that forms quickly. In this act of asking for the blessing.
There is a cultural reality, sometimes a bit exaggerated, but there is also something very just underlying it. First
For it is not the blessing of a man that people seek, but that of God, that of the Heavenly Father.
Then, because this petition manifests an attitude of humility on one part (I am not self-sufficient,
I need the blessing and grace of God for my life), and on the other hand, an attitude of simplicity and
 3

trust: through the poor and limited person of the priest (it is not about canonizing him while alive!)
God can grant His blessing to men, His love and His benevolence. In the West, this kind of
Demand is rarer, but perhaps it is because we have become very proud and have little faith.
In Judaism, every Friday at sunset, after the synagogue's entrance prayer for Shabbat,
Upon returning home, the father blesses each of his children. He also does not cease to honor the...
wife with the song of Eshet Hail [1].

The notion of the father's blessing is very present in the Old Testament. It is also a
tradition in many Christian families. When I was a kid, every night my father would come close to the
bed of each of their children to kiss them and bless them with the sign of the cross on the forehead before
he fell asleep. This blessing from the father is of great importance. The son who has received the blessing
from his father feels loved just as he is, gains self-confidence, can face life with courage and
daring, you can accept the risk of your decisions. Life becomes a beautiful adventure. To
on the contrary, if he has no blessing from his father, he will be less confident, life will become difficult and
complicated. A passage from the Scripture seems very significant to me about this matter. It is a text from the
the prophet Malachi, which is in a key position in Catholic Bibles, as it is the last.
words of the Old Testament, before the New begins. Behold, I will send you the prophet
Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. He will reconcile the hearts of the fathers with
the children and the hearts of the children with the parents, so that I do not come to strike the earth with it
extermination

What this text seems to strongly indicate is that, when the hearts of the parents ...
return to the children, and the children to the parents, then there is no anathema, no curse. The
human existence is beautiful and happy. On the contrary, when the hearts of the parents and the children
they are not united, there is a kind of curse on human existence that becomes complicated and
difficult. It is known that this passage from Malachi will be repeated in the Gospel of Luke regarding the
mission of John the Baptist, for he is the prophet Elijah who was to come. The role of John the Baptist is
prepare the coming of Jesus and of the whole universe of the New Testament, of which the fundamental grace
(for the mission of Jesus and the gift of the Holy Spirit) is to help men understand that the heart
of the Father is turned towards them, in love and mercy, and invites men to return their
hearts towards the Father, with the trust and love of children. Through Jesus, God becomes our Father and
we become his children. Let us remember the words of the risen Lord to Mary
Magdalena: "Go to my brothers and tell them I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God."
your God." Through the death and resurrection of Christ, definitively and totally, God becomes
our God and our Father. In the passage, I find it very significant that this message is directed to the
apostles, which summarizes the entire work of redemption and the mystery of the paternity of God, is entrusted to
a woman.

It is an indication of the extremely important role of women in the economy of salvation for the
acceptance of divine fatherhood and the restoration of human fatherhood. We will return to this. By
the mission of the Son and the Spirit, in the mystery of the New Covenant, God reveals more deeply his
the love of the Father and gives every man the power to be a child of God. For this purpose, it makes fatherhood capable.
human to signify the paternity of God. Jesus, through His Spirit, comes to save, heal, and restore all
form of paternity (and of filiation). Recovers, purifies, rectifies, sanctifies human paternity
making it capable of signifying divine fatherhood again. Human fatherhood, including that of
priest, it is a saved fatherhood that finds its source and its model in divine fatherhood. There is
 4

a beautiful passage from the Letter to the Ephesians where Paul speaks of his mission to announce "the unfathomable
wealth of the mystery of Christ" and "to enlighten all about the fulfillment of the mystery that during
For centuries it was hidden in God […] the eternal plan that He has accomplished through Christ Jesus." It is this
a plan that allows us to have 'the assured confidence of reaching God, through faith in Him.' And it is
It is interesting to note that later, he adds that same passage: "For this reason, I put myself in the..."
knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name"[5]. All
human fatherhood finds its origin, its truth, its purpose in the fatherhood of God. Only by returning
To God, human fatherhood can find its meaning and be exercised justly and fruitfully.
Social and psychological work in this field is necessary and commendable, but it may be insufficient.
5
6